The Long Goodbye

November 8, 2004
Ronald Reagan's youngest daughter, Davis is best known as a peace activist who forcefully disagreed with her father's policies. But this graceful memoir demonstrates that she is also a gifted writer. The focus of the journal-style book is her father's descent into Alzheimer's disease, but Davis deftly weaves family history and childhood memories into the surprisingly vibrant fabric of her story. The most startling aspect of this effort is its universality. Readers whose fathers have never held an elected office higher than president of their high school class will still be able to relate to these musings from a daughter who remembers her dad best for their ordinary moments together: swimming, riding horses or chatting about the flight paths of birds. Even though Davis calls Alzheimer's a "haunting presence in these pages," her message of love, loyalty and forgiveness manages to overshadow this "relentless pirate" of a disease. She recalls Reagan's peaceful acceptance of news that his beloved horse, Nancy D, had died: "His first response to death was to remember the beauty of the life that had passed. The memory comes when I find myself wondering, Where are you?" Davis's thoughtful and honest reflections make her father come to life again and should foster remembrances for readers as well. 2 photos. Agent, Don Epstein at Greater Talent Management. (Nov. 16)

Forecast:
The book's timing—after the flood of Reagan books that immediately followed his death; right before the holiday season—is excellent, which should result in robust sales. 100,000-copy first printing
.

December 1, 2004
In 1983, President Ronald Reagan declared November National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month. Now in a sad twist of fate, his daughter recalls his diagnosis and battle with the disease, an ordeal her mother, Nancy Reagan, called "the long goodbye." Davis's elegiac memoir consists of her private thoughts, memories of her father and her childhood, and her sorrow at the temporary estrangement that arose between her and her parents. Her narrative of Reagan's death, the moment the family hoped might be accompanied by some long-lost clarity of mind, is moving and rings true: "My father looks straight at my mother, holds onto the sight of her face for a moment or two, and then gently closes his eyes and stops breathing. My mother whispers, That's the greatest gift you could have given me.' " Despite the author's annoying tendency toward self-absorption, the text flows easily, and the emotions recalled are so universal that many will find comfort in Davis's depiction of an all-consuming grief. Expect demand in public libraries of all sizes.-Cleo Pappas, Zitek Medical Lib., La Grange Memorial Hosp., IL

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2004
It's hard to know what Patti Davis would write about if she didn't have her family as fodder. Well, to be fair, she did write one novel," Bondage " (1993), but other than that, it's pretty much been all Reagan. In her last book, " Angels Don't Die" (1995), she shared with readers her father's simple religious faith. Now, she recounts the toll Alzheimer's disease took on her family, as Ronald Reagan slipped slowly away. The book begins with Reagan's last days and then moves back in time to 1995-96, when it seemed her father might go sooner rather than later. It isn't that Davis can't write. Her prose can be both thoughtful and graceful. Certainly, her descriptions of the way Alzheimer's shreds lives are heartbreakingly vivid. But one feels uncomfortably like a voyeur as Davis puts on display the withering of the president as well as the frayed emotions of various family members, especially her mother. Perhaps if this were the first book Davis had written about her family, its messages about love, hope, and forgiveness might seem purer. Here, though, it's hard not be skeptical about why Davis is going to the well one more time. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)